ORACLE: Which company do you think violates your privacy
the most? Google? Facebook? Maybe Microsoft? Well, you’re not wrong in that these companies do
violate your privacy, but they’re likely not the worst offender. First of all, you know who they
are and you can take certain steps to mitigate how much data they collect or even eliminate
their data collection altogether by not using their services. There is someone though that not
only has more data than all of these companies, but you also have no chance of cutting them out,
and their name is Oracle. Within tech circles, Oracle is a classic, but outside tech circles,
most people have never even heard of the company. This is quite surprising given that Oracle is the
38th largest company in the world with a market cap of over $200 billion. And Oracle’s founder,
Larry Ellison is the 7th richest person in the world with a net worth of just over $90 billion.
Not only is Oracle massive and rich, but they’re also extraordinarily powerful. A few weeks ago,
you may have seen our video on SAP and SAP’s domination within the enterprise solutions market.
Well, SAP only has one competitor and that’s of course Oracle. 98% of Global Fortune 500 companies
use Oracle, and Oracle has over 430,000 customers around the world who are virutally all 10
million dollar plus businesses. They’re not just limited to enterprise solutions either. In fact,
they own a lot of random tech products and IP here and there. For example, Oracle literally
owns the programming language Java, and they even went as far as suing Google for quote on
quote plagiarizing Java. In 2021, they were even trying to buy TikTok. And back in 1997, they were
actually trying to buy out the entirety of Apple on multiple occasions actually. Considering all
this, I don’t think you’d be surprised to hear that Oracle has a total of 5 billion end users
which is more than any of the FAANG companies. And yes, even Google only has 4.3 billion users.
Likely the only companies that boast a larger customer count are consumer brands like Nestle
and Coca Cola or someone like Johnson and Johnson. But, these aren’t tech companies,
so they don’t exactly have a bunch of data on you like Oracle. A couple of years ago,
Larry Ellison even made a presentation in which he made his intentions of controlling the entire
population blatantly obvious. He said quote “How many people are on Earth? Seven billion,
Two billion to go.” On my last video about SAP, a lot people commented that SAP isn’t actually all
that powerful given that they simply sell software to companies, but like I said in that video,
that’s because SAP doesn’t do anything nefarious with it even though they could. And Oracle is a
perfect example of just what they could do. Just a few months ago, a class action lawsuit was
brought against Oracle for allegedly collecting, profiling, and selling the data of 5B users. So,
here’s the story of how Oracle became the most discrete giant within the entire tech industry.
THE ORIGIN OF ORACLE:
Taking a look back, the story of Oracle dates back to 1977 to three men named Bob Miner,
Ed Oates, and Larry Ellison. The company started off as a database software developer. In fact,
the company’s original name was actually Software Development Laboratories or SDL. The inspiration
for the company was from a research paper written by Edgar F Codd that described the
intricacies of relational database management systems. At first, Ellison’s goal was to create
a piece of software that was compatible for IBM’s System R Database. But unlike Xerox,
IBM wasn’t absolute idiots who just handed out their intellectual property like candy. So,
the trio would have an extremely difficult time trying to troubleshoot error codes and they would
eventually shift their focus onto an easier target: the government. The US government has
this policy of giving everyone an equal chance of trying to land government contracts. They
post their contracts publicly and virtually any US citizen can bid on these contracts. The trio
would do exactly this and somehow they would win a contract to build a database from the CIA. The
project was called Oracle and this is what would eventually become the company’s name. With a
project under their belt, the team would get to work on creating the world’s first commercial
relational database program that used SQL. And this program would eventually get deployed at
an airforce base in Dayton, Ohio. Fun fact, the first commercial version of their product was
actually called Oracle V2. The team figured that less people would be willing to buy a V1 product,
so they just went ahead and named it V2. And it seems like this along with the fact that they
serviced the CIA gave them quite a solid reputation. Not to mention, it’s not like
there were many other options anyway, so more and more companies started to adopt Oracle for their
database software. This was really the bread and butter of the original Oracle. Year after year,
they just kept iterating on their database software coming out with Oracle V3, V4, V5,
V6, V7, and so on. This was quite lucrative given that tech companies were rapidly growing
and basically all of them needed database software which they didn’t want to develop
themselves. By 1989, they reached annual revenues of over half a billion dollars,
but Oracle was just getting started. Throughout the 1990s, they would try to expand their business
and move away from databases, but this didn’t work out all that well. For example, in 1995,
they tried to break into the internet market by launching a browser called PowerBrowser.
Similarly, in 1997, they tried to break into the computer market by launching something
called the network computer. The network computer was actually a brilliant idea. It aimed to remove
much of the components inside of a computer and instead have it run off servers, networks,
and databases similar to a chromebook. But, Oracle quickly found out that the public just wasn’t
ready for this product. While these products didn’t quite work out, Oracle’s core business
was still growing exponentially, and soon they actually found a viable expansion opportunity.
ORACLE PRODUCTS:
While Oracle wasn’t able to break into those new markets, something they could do is buy companies
that were already successful. And luckily for Oracle, they would get the buying opportunity of
a lifetime with the Dotcom crash. While Oracle’s stock also got destroyed by the dotcom crash,
the same could not be said about Oracle’s fundamentals. Their business itself was as strong
as ever which gave them the perfect opportunity to buyout everyone else at record low prices,
and that’s exactly what they did. Oracle’s entire acquisition history is way too long to actually go
through, so we’ll just focus on their five biggest acquisitions starting with PeopleSoft in
2005. PeopleSoft was an ERP or enterprise resource planning company that focused on creating software
for common business tasks. Their product line included 5 main pieces of software including a
human resource management system, a financial management solution, supply chain management,
customer relationship management, and enterprise performance management. These
products accomplish exactly what they sound like. The supply chain management software
for example helps companies keep track of demand, supply, inventory, procurement, order management,
and so on. Similarly, the human resources system helps companies keep track of new hires, employee
turnover, vacation hours, payroll, benefits, and so on. I think you can see why basically every
company would need this software. Oracle would follow up this acquisition by purchasing Siebel
Systems. Siebel was also an enterprise software company, but they didn’t sell ERP software.
Instead they sold a different branch of enterprise software called CRM applications or customer
relationship management applications. This software helps companies manage and coordinate
their marketing and customer service efforts. Moving onto Oracle’s 3rd major acquisition,
we have yet another enterprise solutions company called BEA systems. BEA systems focused on
offering a suite of business process management tools with an emphasis on e commerce. The even
called themselves the E-Commerce Transactions Company as they specialized in creating software
and servers tha allowed for high volume e-commerce transactions. After that, we have Oracle’s most
famous acquisition of all time: Sun Microsystems. Unlike the other companies, Sun wasn’t just
focused on one product. They were a massive tech conglomerate that did everything from developing
software to selling hardware. Likely the most interesting part of Sun, however, is their various
inventions. These were the guys who created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating
system, ZFS, NFS, and SPARC microprocessors. They also made significant contributions to Unix, RISC
processors, thin client computing, and virtualized computing. Essentially, this acquisition gave
Oracle access to a boatload of IP. And that brings us into Oracle’s last major acquisition which was
Netsuite in 2016. Netsuite rounded out Oracle’s enterprise suite by giving them access to the last
piece that they were missing: the cloud. Netsuite was an expert at cloud based enterprise software,
cloud computing, and cloud ERP. And all of these acquisitions bring us to where we are today.
ORACLE TODAY:
If you’re still wondering what Oracle sells, the answer is virtually anything and everything that
companies need to stay operational on the backend. They started off with just database software,
but they have gone on to acquire basically every enterprise solutions giant in the world except
for SAP. And today, they offer all of this. As this Quora user put it, “it would take a very
dedicated effort for a large organization like a Fortune 500 to not be running Oracle somewhere.”
And that’s how Oracle gained access to data of 5 billion people. But what exactly are they even
collecting? Well, allegedly, Oracle has been using cookies, tracking pixels, device identification,
and cross device tracking to collect three subsets of information starting with personal information.
This includes users’ names, home and work address, email address, and phone numbers. The second
subset of information consists of behavioral information. This includes websites viewed
by users, online and offline purchase, where they shop, and their mode of payment. The third subset
of information is even more personal given that it includes things such as income, political views,
and hobbies. And the worst part is that you virtually have no way of avoiding them. Heck,
people usually complain about large corporations, but even they can’t avoid using Oracle. Oracle
has become an omnipresent backend giant that’s reputable, has scale, is reliable,
and has basically everything you would need. So, Oracle isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In fact,
they’re only growing stronger and more powerful. As Ellison said, only 2 billion people to go. But,
what about the class action lawsuit? That should be able to deal some damage to Oracle right? Well,
probably not. Even if Oracle ends up being found guilty, it’s not like a fine would really change
their ways or stop them. Even if Oracle was fined $10 billion, it would at max set them
back one year. So, there’s really no choice but to simply deal with it just like we deal with
Google or Facebook. On the brightside, Oracle does make our modern tech based world possible,
but with that being said, it’s probably still not all that great for an individual company
to have so much power, control, and influence, but that’s just what I think. Did you realize how much
power Oracle has? Comment that down below. Also, drop a like if this video helped you understand
Oracle’s business better. And of course, consider checking out our discord community to suggest
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